Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys [46]
A Benky foot and a Benky leg
For Charlie over the water.
Charlie, Charlie,’
she sang in a hoarse voice. And lifted the bottle to drink again.
I said, and my voice was not very calm, ‘No.’
I managed to hold her wrist with one hand and the rum with the other, but when I felt her teeth in my arm I dropped the bottle. The smell filled the room. But I was angry now and she saw it. She smashed another bottle against the wall and stood with the broken glass in her hand and murder in her eyes.
‘Just you touch me once. You’ll soon see if I’m a dam’ coward like you are.’
Then she cursed me comprehensively, my eyes, my mouth, every member of my body, and it was like a dream in the large unfurnished room with the candles flickering and this red-eyed wild-haired stranger who was my wife shouting obscenities at me. It was at this nightmare moment that I heard Christophine’s calm voice.
‘You hush up and keep yourself quiet. And don’t cry. Crying’s no good with him. I told you before. Crying’s no good.’
Antoinette collapsed on the sofa and went on sobbing. Christophine looked at me and her small eyes were very sad. ‘Why you do that eh? Why you don’t take that worthless good-for-nothing girl somewhere else? But she love money like you love money – must be why you come together. Like goes to like.’
I couldn’t bear any more and again I went out of the room and sat on the veranda.
My arm was bleeding and painful and I wrapped my handkerchief round it, but it seemed to me that everything round me was hostile. The telescope drew away and said don’t touch me. The trees were threatening and the shadows of the trees moving slowly over the floor menaced me. That green menace. I had felt it ever since I saw this place. There was nothing I knew, nothing to comfort me.
I listened. Christophine was talking softly. My wife was crying. Then a door shut. They had gone into the bedroom. Someone was singing ‘Ma belle ka di’, or was it the song about one day and a thousand years. But whatever they were singing or saying was dangerous. I must protect myself. I went softly along the dark veranda. I could see Antoinette stretched on the bed quite still. Like a doll. Even when she threatened me with the bottle she had a marionette quality. ‘Ti moun,’ I heard and ‘Doudou ché,’ and the end of a head handkerchief made a finger on the wall. ‘Do do l’enfant do.’ Listening, I began to feel sleepy and cold.
I stumbled back into the big candlelit room which still smelt strongly of rum. In spite of this I opened the chest and got another bottle. That was what I was thinking when Christophine came in. I was thinking of a last strong drink in my room, fastening both doors, and sleeping.
‘I hope you satisfy, I hope you well satisfy,’ she said, ‘and no good to start your lies with me. I know what you do with that girl as well as you know. Better. Don’t think I frightened of you either.
‘So she ran off to tell you I’d ill-treated her, did she? I ought to have guessed that.’
‘She don’t tell me a thing,’ said Christophine. ‘Not a single thing. Always the same. Nobody is to have any pride but you. She have more pride than you and she say nothing. I see her standing at my door with that look on her face and I know something bad happen to her. I know I must act quick and I act.’
‘You seem to have acted, certainly. And what did you do before you brought her back in her present condition?’
‘What did I do! Look! don’t you provoke me more than I provoke already. Better not I tell you. You want to know what I do? I say doudou, if you have trouble you are right to come to me. And I kiss her. It’s when I kiss her she cry – not before. It’s long time she hold it back, I think. So I let her cry. That is the first thing. Let them cry - it eases the heart. When she can’t cry no more I give her a cup of milk – it’s lucky I have some. She won’t eat, she won’t talk. So I say, “Lie down on the bed doudou and try to sleep, for me I can sleep on the floor, don’t matter for